Bipartisan lawmakers, educators, parents push to expand Maine's child tax credit

Yahoo

08-04-2025

April Tardiff of Old Orchard Beach urges lawmakers to expand Maine's version of a child tax credit while her son plays in the committee room on April 8, 2025. (Photo by Emma Davis/ Maine Morning Star)
April Tardiff, a mother of three from Old Orchard Beach, told the Taxation Committee that expanding Maine's version of a child tax credit would allow her to worry less and focus on raising happy, healthy children, one of which had wriggled free from his seat and ran around the room as she testified.
'After paying for groceries, diapers, rent, transportation and utilities, there's nothing left,' Tardiff said, explaining that her family falls in the category of Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed, or ALIC, which refers to households earning above the federal poverty level but not enough to afford basic necessities. 'Some months, we're just holding on until the next paycheck arrives.'
Other parents, medical professionals, educators and policy experts testified in support of legislation that would double the state's child tax credit for some recipients, which would be paid for by phasing out the benefit for the state's highest earners.
LD 1294, proposed by Senate President Mattie Daughtry (D-Brunswick) with bipartisan co-sponsors, would provide an additional $300 per child under six years old for the Dependent Exemption Tax Credit, for a total of $600 per child per tax year.
'At the end of the day. This bill is about values. It's about recognizing the hard work and sacrifices that parents make every day and ensuring that our tax code reflects that reality,' Daughtry said. 'Additionally, which I am proud to say in the budget outlook that we exist in currently, this proposal is designed to be revenue neutral.'
It seems like it's not a lot, but we've all seen the prices going up on everything. I think $300 is a small price to pay for dignity.
– Hazel Willow
Currently, the phase out rate for the credit begins at $400,000 for married couples filing jointly and $200,000 for all other filers. LD 1294 would lower the phase out threshold — $100,000 for single filers, $125,000 for head of households, $150,000 for married people filing jointly.
Gov. Janet Mills' administration is recommending the changes proposed in the bill be delayed until the 2026 tax year to give the state time and ability to react to any changes to the federal child tax credit, said Michael Allen, associate commissioner for tax policy for the Department of Administrative and Financial Services, testifying neither for nor against the legislation.
Currently, the maximum federal credit is $2,000 per qualifying child for an individual making less than $200,000 annually or a couple filing jointly that makes less than $400,000 — a refundability cap President Donald Trump increased with a 2017 tax law during his last presidency, expanding the credit to wealthier Americans. That law is set to expire at the end of 2025, though congressional Republicans have advanced a plan to continue those cuts.
Many who testified in support of the legislation said the additional credit is particularly helpful for parents of young children because of the high cost of child care.
Given that reasoning, Rep. Shelley Rudnicki (R-Fairfield) questioned whether it would be more effective to loosen child care regulations instead. But child care providers pushed back, arguing that would loosen the quality of the care and that liability insurance would likely refuse to insure providers.
Others on the committee posed questions to the public about whether an extra $300 would truly make a difference.
With her young son holding onto her dress at the podium, Hazel Willow responded that that amount would allow her to enroll her child in a sport or buy clothes rather than rely on shelter hand me downs. A survivor of domestic abuse, Willow added that the extra money is also about giving autonomy back to the people who've had it stripped away by trauma and circumstance.
'It seems like it's not a lot, but we've all seen the prices going up on everything,' Willow said. 'I think $300 is a small price to pay for dignity.'
One day before the public hearing on Tuesday, Daughtry, child care providers and parents gathered at the Magic Years Center, which provides Head Start, preschool and childcare for young children in the Augusta area, to share their support for the legislation.
Tabitha Thomas, a mother of six in Waterville, said increasing the tax credit would help her afford things others may take for granted, such as being able to pay rent and take her children to important appointments. Thomas is a student at Kennebec Valley Community College, studying mental health and case management, and works part time in food service at Colby College.
'I would work more but between long hours being a mom and going to school it is impossible to fulfill the needs of my children while still keeping up financially,' Thomas said.
That's why the tax credit is crucial for her family, Thomas said. That is also true for Raychel Ward's family. Ward, a mother of three from Livermore Falls, said she'd use the extra money to pay for visits to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia for her five month old son, who has a condition where he produces too much insulin that few doctors specialize in.
'The thing is, for families with special needs children, we don't have wiggle room,' Thomas said. 'Every dollar that comes into our house is already allocated to meet their needs, whether it's getting them to the therapy appointments, making sure our cars are maintained or making sure that they get to see specialists that maybe aren't deemed necessary.'
The expansion of the federal child tax credit during the COVID-19 pandemic had helped her and her husband put window and door alarms on their apartment as one of her daughters, who is on the autism spectrum, had been getting out, she said.
For the 2021 tax year, the federal credit was increased to $3,600 per child under six and $3,000 per child aged six to 17 and switched to monthly, rather than annual, payments for the first several months. The expansion cut child poverty in half nationwide but those gains have since been erased with the expiration of the enhanced credit at the end of 2021.
Maine picked up where Congress left off, said Ann Danforth, policy advocate for Maine Equal Justice, pointing to the Legislature making the state credit refundable and indexing it to inflation in 2023.
'We have the chance to continue that progress,' Danforth said. 'Child poverty is not an unsolvable problem.'
According to the most recent data available from 2023, Maine has a child poverty rate of 12.6%, which is a historic low. The number of children in poverty in Maine has declined in recent years, but the overall share of Mainers living in 'deep poverty' — with incomes less than half the official poverty level — has slightly increased.
Garrett Martin, president and CEO of the Maine Center for Economic Policy, called the child tax credit expansion a smart economic move for Maine, citing research that shows families use child tax credits for basic needs such as food, school expenses and child care.
'This is an economic investment with long-term returns: higher earnings, better health outcomes, and stronger communities,' Martin said.
SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE